Strength Calculators

Strength and Dilution Calculators

These interactive calculators will help you understand the effect of adding water to coffee from the perspective of strength (Total Dissolved Solids, or concentration). Although they require a refractometer to provide initial coffee measurements, they’re just as useful for experimentation and exploration of strength as a concept. Use them to calibrate your americanos, long blacks and bypass brews. Or, fix a batch brew that’s too strong by bringing it back down to target strength. Have a play, make up some recipes and see what happens – no one will see your numbers except you.

There’s two calculators.

Each answers a different question:

If I add this much water to a coffee, what will the strength be afterwards?

I want to dilute this coffee to a specific strength. How much water do I need?

Strength Calculator

Use this calculator to find the strength of a drink when you know the amount of water you’re adding.

You can change the blue numbers below. Don’t be shy – play around and see what happens!

(Typing in cells won’t work in Chrome for iOS or Firefox on Android. You’ll have to switch browsers, sorry.)

Example 1: My coffee weighs 44g and it’s at 9% strength. I’m adding 50g water which makes the total strength 4.2%.Example 2: My coffee weighs 140g and it’s at 2% strength. I’m adding 60g water which makes the total strength 1.4%. – Only edit the blue numbers. – If you mix it up, just refresh the page. – Feel free to download the spreadsheet for offline use.

Dilution Calculator

Use this calculator to find how much water you need to add to hit a certain strength.

You can change the blue numbers below. Don’t be shy – play around and see what happens!

Example 1: My coffee weighs 50g and its strength is 9%. I want a strength of 4.5% so I should add 50g water to get there. Example 2: My coffee weighs 2000g and its strength is 1.6%. I want a strength of 1.4% so I should add 286g water to get there.

Only edit the blue numbers. – If you mix it up, just refresh the page. – Feel free to download the spreadsheet for offline use.